“Well, maybe he was,” says I. “Why not?”
“Then you haven’t heard,” says Sadie, “that Sir Carpenter was for a long time a Judge on the criminal bench.”
“Z-z-z-zing!” says I. “Looks kind of squally for the governess, don’t it?”
If it hadn’t been for Pinckney, too, Aunt Martha’d had her thrown out that night; but he wouldn’t have it that way.
“I’ve never been murdered in my bed, or been fed on ground glass,” says he, “and—who knows?—I might like the sensation.”
Say, there’s more sides to that Pinckney than there are to a cutglass paperweight. You might think, with him such a Reggie chap, that havin’ a suspicious character like that around would get on his nerves; but, when it comes to applyin’ the real color test, there ain’t any more yellow in him than in a ball of bluin’, and he can be as curious about certain things as a kid investigatin’ the animal cages.
Rather than tie the can to Madame Roulaire without gettin’ a straight line on her, he was willin’ to run chances. And it don’t make any difference to him how much Aunt Martha croaks about this and that, and suggests how dreadful it is to think of those dear, innocent little children exposed to such evil influences. That last item appeals strong to Mrs. Pinckney and Sadie, though.
“Of course,” says Geraldine, “the twins don’t suspect a thing as yet, and whatever we discover must be kept from them.”
“Certainly,” says Sadie, “the poor little dears mustn’t know.”
So part of the programme was to keep them out of her way as much as possible without actually callin’ her to the bench, and that’s what fetched me out there early the other afternoon. It was my turn at protectin’ innocent childhood. I must say, though, it’s hard realizin’ they need anything of that sort when you’re within reach of that Jack and Jill combination. Most people seem to feel the other way; but, while their society is apt to be more or less strenuous, I can gen’rally stand an hour or so of it without collectin’ any broken bones.